President Moon meets leaders of S. Korean conglomerates for talks on Japan's export curbs

  • 5 years ago
We start over at the top office... where President Moon Jae-in met with the nation's business leaders to devise a strategy to counter Japan's tech-related export curbs against South Korean firms.
It's the first such meeting between the president and business leaders since January.
For more, we connect live to our presidential office correspondent Shin Se-min standing by at the top office for us.
Semin, tell us more about this meeting.

The meeting began at around 10-30 this morning, and has just wrapped up here at the top office.
President Moon Jae-in met with 34 business leaders for talks on countermeasures against Japan's export curbs and how the companies can respond.
The president mentioned the need for both short-term and more fundamental measures.

"The government will actively support expanding domestic production and diversifying our business counterparts to minimize the damage to our firms. We should take this opportunity as a way to upgrade our core industries' use of domestic technology, components and materials and lower the level of reliance on foreign countries."

The president added that the government is facing unreasonable export restrictions by Japan and is doing its utmost to find a diplomatic solution.
Moon once again called for Japan to act responsibly as such retaliatory measures will only result in damaging the two countries' bilateral friendship and cooperation on national security.
He also urged for conglomerate-driven collaboration on top of the government's measures.
At the meeting today were key figures from South Korea's big five conglomerates: Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK, LG and Lotte Group.
But Samsung Electronics' Vice Chair and de facto leader Lee Jae-yong and Lotte Group's Shin Dong-bin were not at the meeting instead sending other representatives as they are in Japan looking for ways to minimize the impact of the export curbs on their respective companies.

So we might have to wait a while for the details of the meeting today... but this isn't the first meeting that the top office has had since Japan's announcement of export restrictions.

The presidential office and the government have been working closely with businesses since Japan had revealed its retaliatory measures on exports.
This past Sunday the presidential chief of staff for policy Kim Sang-jo and the top economic policymaker Hong Nam-ki reportedly held a behind-closed-doors meeting with the heads of Hyundai Motor, SK and LG Group.
It's been reported that they discussed the businesses' responses as well as the government's support plans.
And prior to that,... the presidential chief of staff also met with Samsung's semiconductor chief Kim Ki-nam and Yoon Boo-keun earlier this month.
This,... as Samsung's biggest cash cow, along with SK hynix, looks to be slammed the hardest over Japan's export restrictions that focus on materials needed for display and chip production.
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